The 2023 Albertan Queer Affirmation Review identified the importance of empowering Queer story tellers.
Through its ways, Treaty guarantees that Two Spirit folks & others should be able to live in our cities and schools. Queer people have the grand joy that, in being true to ourselves, we make room for & affirm Treaty. The same Treaty that allows us to be our own true selves lets others do the same, and deserves empowerment. Through this, Queer spaces become magic spaces, and stories maintain that magic.
By grace and good fortune, we've gathered Queer writers and their stories. Month’s since our last episode, months since hurdles and hiatus, today's story brings us to a new tempo and reflects on Queer storytelling and storytellers. What follows comes in part from being Queer in Treaty 7.
“Queer Writers and Story Ripples” - A Queer Salon Inspired Tale
Over the noise and chatter the voice cut through the Canooligans crowd like a knife through butter:
“You’re from Calgary – You share Queer stories, right?”
I turned, pausing the cider halfway to my lips. Around me, the chaos of an imminent drag show swirled about the bar – families and friends debating food orders, Denim Debbies & Dans clinking and drinking, sound tech mic checks and Boomers hucking jokes – amidst clusters of allies and rainbow folks of the BC Interior. And, mixed about the Queerier Interior crowd was this stranger – Gen X, fashionable but not flaunty – eyes alight with the particular excitement of someone who’d just connected invisible dots.
“CJ’s doing great work out there,” she said, leaning in as a half-queened-up Queen sashayed between us, through the crowd, and away to greater things. “It’s great to finally have someone to tell, CJ is doing great work.”
The moment crystallised like morning ice on the mountain lakes. Here, in a valley many mountain crests west of Treaty 7 lands, in territory devoid of treaty itself and far from the few and sparse Canadian metropolises, a stranger found me in the alps, recognising not just me, but the story I hadn’t finished telling.
Later, standing under the stars watching their reflection wisp on the lake, I would think about how the Alberta Queer Affirmation Review called for this kind of phenomenon, “the ripple effect of empowered storytellers empowering connections.” But in that bar, in the noise and pre-show din all I could think of was, “How the hell did she hear my story let alone know it?”
Queer stories tend to travel farther than we expect them to, often with bends keeping them from being too straight or forward.
Months earlier, I’d hosted CJ at a storytelling salon night near the Confluence in Calgary. They spoke about their time away from Alberta and abroad in Scotland – not just the castles and the coursework that had brought them there, but the growth, what they’d learnt there, and what came back with them. Long ago – so long it’s now origin-story lore – CJ found themself in Edinburgh for learning and should you ever hear them talk of it you’ll hear about all the learning they hadn’t intended to gain, how they came about a writing club, and what stuck and sunk in and in good time and due course turned to action back home in Canada. It would be inspiration and an aspiration that led to the Queer Writers of Calgary - that dedicated group of story growing and showing folks, and humble to boot.
Back near the Confluence, half of the salon’s attendees already knew the story - it was apparent they knew it by heart and that hey took it to heart. You could see it in the way the regulars - those who’d been meeting biweekly or so at Wild Rabbit Vintage – nodded when CJ described passing notebooks and words like rights and social sacraments.
What went unsaid but hung present in the conversations of that night, and what the Affirmation review noted in 2023 ,was that when we make room for Queer stories, we strengthen everything from our small circles, to Canada, to Treaty itself, and beyond.
CJ shared the routine of the Queer Writers, their biweekly or so gatherings to work on projects alongside one another in community and for community, and while routine discussions can be mundane in themselves there was only magic in that room. Walk into Wild Rabbit Vintage on the right night, and you’ll find the upstairs transformed into what policy folks call a case study in cultural infrastructure - but infrastructure is too mundane a word for the magic that happens there. Often magic tricks take the awesome and cover it with the common, and in this case the members of the group started peeling back and sharing the awesomeness and achievements of the ‘Writers. Their gatherings enable stories to glow, let community gather, and in turn gather a greater community, more often than not unlocking resources to compound the growth. Drinking coffee and growing stories is typically a kitchen or living room affair of salons, but the ‘Writers have found ways to unlock space through building bonds with folks like those at Wild Rabbit Vintage and Handmade Goods, Hair Salons & Stylists, purveyors of food as well as organisations committed to empowerment.
Near transit, with a cafe below and meeting space above, Wild Rabbit opened their doors to let the folks who write, gain parallel play and perspective and insights while working on their works. They encourage, they get encouraged, and they share their courage. It’s the kind of stuff the first Albertan Affirmation Review found as gold and called for more of – stories to let culture and community foster and enhance one another. When that first report was published I had the privilege of joining the Wild Rabbit Vintage studio space table. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, the Writers’ unlock not just the space, but opportunities, minds, and hearts for stronger community.
CJ spoke about Wild Rabbit and all the good that came from that good routine. The routine event encouraged writing, collaboration, community, and more. All those truths were shared with the room and then some; it was difficult not to smile seeing the nods amongst the audience and difficult more so not to interrupt with meaningful anecdotes with every salient point spoke. Some of the Writers in the room couldn’t help themselves, but CJ humbly glazed over as they almost procedurally, and without any bolster or brag, pivoted towards the joys of creating space for all of these creations to be shared. The effort of finding a venue, gaining support for a Queer public event while mitigating what comes from drawing attention to a Queer public event, even the stress of food trays for the diverse diets of many Queer palettes, stomaches, and bodies.
I smiled on as CJ spoke, remembering the privileged night I was invited to to join in on a live reading event in a friendly downtown shop’s basement. That most spectacular space would have been full of magical ambience if it weren’t already full of magical peoples of all sorts gathered for stories. I smiled remembering that years earlier a very closeted Mattie spent hours in the very same basement putting together signs for political campaigning in a dark and dank atmosphere. But with new business upstairs committed to community and with dozens of friendly folks in the audience the dark had become bright; dank in a whole new light.
I cannot say CJ’s story ended, because as they wrapped a new reflection or gratitude would come from the audience. At first from other Queer Writers of Calgary members, but then from the rest of the room; community, courage, gathering, growth all stealing the story CJ brought to the room and turning it into something more, by many more.
Standing under those Shuswap stars, I remember I thought of all the places Queer stories land - Edinburgh, Treaty 7, mountain drag shows; limitless. The Review called it a ripple effect, but this wasn’t stones dropping in a pond. These were seeds, carried by capricious winds, biding time, taking root where they can take hold and where the soil remembers to hold them.
The Queer Writers of Calgary have been evolving, as we all do, and are now part of a larger queer community group, which features both the Writers and Sun Seekers under the larger umbrella of The Frolic Parade. You can find them online through Instagram and Discord.
The Queer in Treaty 7 Podcast is produced here in Treaty 7 territory, and is a call to action from The 2023 Albertan Queer Affirmation Review; an ongoing work by community curated by Cupola Policy & Strategy. You can find more, read more, and hear more through this substack, and more on policy science inclusion efforts at CupolaStrategy.com
Thank you for sharing your time, and for entrenching the Treaty Queer.
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